AWE identifies shale gas potential of Perth Basin

Oil and gas producer
AWE
said on Tuesday that one of its Perth Basin shale gas targets could hold as much as 20 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The Sydney-based company, which has been investigating the prospectivity of shale gas in the onshore Perth Basin for more than two years, has identified a potential resource in one of three key shale sequences within its acreage near Dongara, about 360 kilometres north of Perth.

AWE estimates the middle section of the Carynginia shale from its Woodada Deep well could hold between 13 and 20 trillion cubic feet. AWE, which holds about 620,000 acres of prospective shale gas acreage in the Perth Basin, said the shale shares similar characteristics to some productive shale units in the US.

Carynginia is one of three of the company’s shale gas targets in the Perth Basin. While the upper and lower cored intervals of the Carynginia shales were found to have higher clay contents than successful US shales, AWE said fracture stimulation properties were good and these intervals would be further evaluated in future wells as secondary objectives.

“Importantly, the results of the work undertaken in the Woodada Deep-1 well are not seen to exclude the potential of the shales across the entire acreage holding," AWE said.

The company plans to incorporate the core analyses into its geological models for all three shale gas targets in the early 2011 ahead of a drilling campaign beginning mid year.